The Cider House Rules (34 page)

“It’s just for two days,” Homer Wells repeated; with each repetition his promise sounded less and less likely.

“They’re taking
you
! I can’t believe it!” cried Curly Day.

Nurse Angela came and sat beside Homer on Curly’s bed. Together they regarded the sobbing mound under the blanket.

“It’s just for two days, Curly,” Nurse Angela said lamely.

“Doctor Larch said Homer was here to
protect
us!” Curly cried. “Some protection!”

Nurse Angela whispered to Homer: that if he’d go clean up the operating table, she’d sit with Curly until he felt better; she’d not wanted to clean up the table while the nice young couple needed to be alone. “Your friends seemed to be having a nice moment together,” Nurse Angela whispered to Homer Wells. My
friends
! he thought. Is it possible I’m going to be having
friends
?

“You’re
not
the best one, Homer!” Curly cried, under the blanket.

“Right,” Homer said; he tried to pat Curly, but Curly stiffened and held his breath. “I’ll see you, Curly,” Homer said.

“Traitor!” cried Curly Day. Curly seemed to recognize Nurse Angela’s touch; his rigid body relaxed, and he gave himself over to a steady sobbing.

Nurse Edna had finally stopped young Steerforth from crying, or she had simply outlasted the baby, who was now washed and dressed and almost asleep in Nurse Edna’s arms. He had taken enough of the formula to satisfy Nurse Edna, and so she put him in his bed and finished cleaning the room where he’d been delivered. As soon as she’d put a fresh sheet on the table—she was just wiping the gleaming stirrups—Dr. Larch lurched into the room with the stationmaster’s stiff body a somewhat pliable plank over his shoulder.

“Wilbur!” Nurse Edna said critically. “You should let Homer help you with that.”

“It’s time to get used to not having Homer around,” Dr. Larch said curtly, dropping the stationmaster’s body on the table. Oh, dear, Nurse Edna thought, we’re in for a ferocious time of it.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen the sternum shears,” Dr. Larch asked her.

“The snips?” she asked.

“They’re called
shears,
” he said. “If you’d just undress him—I’ll ask Homer.”

Homer knocked before he entered the operating room, where Candy had dressed herself, with Wally’s fumbling help, and now stood leaning against him in what struck Homer as an oddly formal pose—as if the couple had just finished a dance competition and were awaiting the judges’ applause.

“You can relax now,” said Homer Wells, not quite able to look at Candy’s face. “Maybe you’d like some fresh air. I won’t be long; I have to clean the table.” As an awkward second thought, he added to Candy, “You’re feeling all right, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, her eyes passing over Homer very quickly; she smiled reassuringly at Wally.

That was when Dr. Larch came in and asked Homer if he knew where the sternum shears were.

“They’re with Clara,” Homer admitted. “I’m sorry,” he added quickly. “I had them there because I thought I might need them for the autopsy. On the fetus,” he added.

“You don’t use sternum shears on a fetus,” Dr. Larch said.

“I know—I used the scissors,” said Homer Wells, who was aware that the words “fetus” and “autopsy” fell like drops of blood on Wally and Candy. “I’ll go get the shears for you,” Homer said to Dr. Larch.

“No, finish what you’re doing here,” Larch said. “You two should get some fresh air,” he said to Wally and Candy, who took his suggestion for a command—which it was. They left the operating room; on their way down the hall to the hospital entrance, they would have spotted the stationmaster’s assistant, lurking in his corner, had the assistant not been so unnerved by the sight of Dr. Larch carrying the stationmaster’s body out of the dispensary that he had cautiously attempted to follow this troubling vision. In his fear, he made a wrong turn and found himself in the dispensary. He was staring at the mud on the sheet at the foot of the bed when Wally led Candy outdoors.

“If you’re so sure it was his heart,” Homer Wells was asking Dr. Larch, “why are you in such a hurry to do the autopsy?”

“I like to keep busy,” Larch said, surprised by the barely restrained anger in his own voice. He might have told Homer, then, that he loved him very much and that he needed something very active to occupy himself at this moment of Homer’s departure. He might have confessed to Homer Wells that he wanted very much to lie down on his own bed in the dispensary and administer a little ether to himself, but that he couldn’t very well have done that while the stationmaster had occupied his bed. He wanted to take Homer Wells in his arms, and hug him, and kiss him, but he could only hope that Homer understood how much Dr. Larch’s self-esteem was dependent on his self-control. And so he said nothing; he left Homer alone in the operating room while he went to find the sternum shears.

Homer scrubbed the table with disinfectant. He had sealed the refuse bag when he noticed the almost transparent blondness of the clump of pubic hair that clung to his pantleg—a tight, clean curl of Candy’s especially fine hair was caught on his knee. He held it up to the light, then put it in his pocket.

Nurse Edna was crying as she undressed the stationmaster. Dr. Larch had told her and Nurse Angela that there would be no hoopla of heartfelt well-wishing upon the departure of Homer Wells—nothing that would lead Candy and Wally to suspect that Homer Wells was even considering he might be gone more than two days. “Nothing,” Dr. Larch had said. No hugs, no kisses, thought Nurse Edna, weeping. Her tears had no influence on the expression of the stationmaster, whose face remained seized by fear; Nurse Edna completely ignored the stationmaster. She devoted herself to her misery at being forbidden to gush over saying good-bye to Homer Wells.

“We will all appear casual about his leaving,” Dr. Larch had said. “Period.”

Casual! Nurse Edna thought. The stationmaster was down to his socks when Dr. Larch walked in with the sternum shears.

“There will be no crying,” he said sternly to her. “Do you want to give everything away?” She yanked off the stationmaster’s socks and threw them at Dr. Larch; then she left him alone with the body.

Homer Wells gave the operating table a thorough inspection, a final examination—a last look. He transferred the cluster of Candy’s pubic hair from his pocket to his wallet; he once more counted the money Dr. Larch had given him. There was almost fifty dollars.

He went back to the boys’ sleeping room; Nurse Angela still sat on the edge of the bed where Curly Day was still sobbing. She kissed Homer without altering the motion of her hand, which was rubbing Curly Day’s back through the blanket; Homer kissed her, and left her without a word.

“I can’t believe they took
him,
” murmured Curly Day through his tears.

“He’ll be back,” whispered Nurse Angela soothingly.
Our
Homer! she thought—I know he’ll be back! Doesn’t he know where he belongs?

Nurse Edna, attempting to compose herself, stepped into the dispensary, where she encountered the trembling stationmaster’s assistant.

“May I help you?” Nurse Edna asked, pulling herself together.

“I’ve come to view the body,” mumbled the assistant.

From across the hall, Nurse Edna heard the familiar crack of the sternum shears, splitting the stationmaster’s chest. She doubted that the assistant would care to view the body in its present state. What she said to the assistant was, “Doctor Larch isn’t finished with the autopsy.”

“I brought some catalogues for Doctor Larch,” the assistant said, handing the mess to Nurse Edna.

“Why, thank you,” she said, but the young goon in his funeral finery showed no signs of leaving. Perhaps the ether in the dispensary air was unraveling him. “Would you like to wait?” Nurse Edna asked him. He stared at her. “To view the body,” she reminded him. “You could wait in Nurse Angela’s office.” He nodded gratefully as Nurse Edna pointed the way down the hall. “The last door on your right,” she told him. “Just make yourself comfortable.”

Unburdened of the stationmaster’s catalogues, the assistant had a lighter, more relaxed step as he aimed himself toward Nurse Angela’s office. He was pleased to see there was a choice of chairs to sit in. Naturally, he would not choose the desk chair, behind the typewriter, but there were two lower, more comfortable-looking chairs positioned in front of the desk and the typewriter. They were the chairs that the prospective foster parents sat in when they were being interviewed. They were unmatched paisley easy chairs, and the stationmaster’s assistant chose the lower, more overstuffed one. He regretted his decision as soon as he felt how very low the chair was; everything in the cluttered office seemed to loom over him. If Dr. Larch had been sitting at the desk, at the typewriter, he would have towered over the assistant in his low-sunk chair.

The assistant saw a white enamel sort of pan, or tray, upon the typewriter, but he was seated so very low that he couldn’t view the pan’s contents. Two tiny hands reached above the edge of the examining tray, but only the fingertips of the dead baby from Three Mile Falls were visible to the stationmaster’s assistant. He had never seen a fetus before, or even a newborn baby; he was unprepared for how small the fingers can be. He kept looking around the room, from his sunken and growingly uncomfortable position, but his eyes kept coming back to the fingertips sticking above the rim of the examining tray. He couldn’t believe he was really looking at
fingers.

Whatever that is, it looks like
fingers,
he thought. Gradually, he stopped looking at other things in the room. He stared at the fingertips; a part of his mind said, Get up and see what that is! Another part of his mind made his body feel sunken into the easy chair and held down there by a great weight.

It can’t be
fingers
! he thought; he kept staring, he kept sitting.

Nurse Edna wanted to tell Dr. Larch that he should, for once, let his feelings speak for him—that he should tell Homer Wells what he felt—but she stood quietly listening at the operating room door. The stationmaster’s chest cracked a few more times. This didn’t discomfort her—Nurse Edna was a professional—and she could tell by the precision of the snaps she heard that Dr. Larch had chosen to occupy his emotions with a task. It’s
his
decision, she told herself. She went outside to see how that nice young couple were doing.

The young man was doing whatever young men do while peering under the hoods of cars, and the girl was resting, semi-reclined in the Cadillac’s spacious back seat. The convertible top was still down. Nurse Edna bent over Candy and whispered to her, “You’re as pretty as a picture!” Candy smiled warmly. Nurse Edna could see how exhausted the girl was. “Listen, dear,” Nurse Edna said to her. “Don’t be shy—if you’re worried about your spotting,” Nurse Edna said to her confidentially, “or if you have any peculiar cramps, speak to Homer about it. Promise me you won’t be shy about it, dear. And most certainly, if you run a fever—promise me,” Nurse Edna said.

“I promise,” Candy said, blushing.

Melony was struggling to inscribe the copy of
Little Dorrit
she had stolen for Homer when she heard Mary Agnes Cork throwing up in the bathroom.

“Shut up!” Melony called, but Mary Agnes went on retching. She’d eaten two jars of apple-cider jelly, one jar of honey and another of crab-apple jelly. She thought it was the honey that did it.

Smoky Fields had already thrown up. He’d eaten all his jars, of everything, and a jar belonging to one of the little Walshes. He lay miserably in his bed, listening to Curly Day crying and Nurse Angela talking on and on.

TO HOMER “SUNSHINE” WELLS

FOR THE PROMISE

YOU MADE ME

Melony wrote. She glanced out her window, but there was nothing going on. It wasn’t dark; it wasn’t time for the two women she’d watched arrive in the morning to be heading downhill for their return train—to wherever.

LOVE, MELONY

Melony added, as Mary Agnes groaned and heaved again.

“You dumb little bitch pig!” Melony called.

Homer Wells walked into the operating room when Wilbur Larch had successfully exposed the stationmaster’s heart. Larch was not surprised to see no evidence of heart disease, no dead-muscle tissue (“No infarction,” he said to Homer, without looking up at him)—in short, no damage to the heart of any kind.

“The stationmaster had a healthy heart,” Dr. Larch announced to Homer Wells. No “massive” heart attack had dropped the stationmaster, as Larch had suspected. It appeared there had been a very sudden change in the heart’s rhythm. “
Arrhythmia,
I think,” Dr. Larch said to Homer Wells.

“His heart just stopped, right?” Homer asked.

“I think that he suffered some shock, or fright,” said Wilbur Larch.

Homer Wells could believe that—just by looking at the stationmaster’s face. “Right,” he said.

“Of course there could be a clot in the brain,” said Wilbur Larch. “Where should I look?” he asked Homer familiarly.

“The brain stem,” said Homer Wells.

“Right,” Wilbur Larch said. “Good boy.”

When Homer Wells saw the stationmaster’s brain stem exposed, he felt that Dr. Larch was busy enough—with both hands—for it to be safe to say what Homer wanted to say.

“I love you,” said Homer Wells. He knew he had to leave the room, then—while he could still see the door—and so he started to leave.

“I love you, too, Homer,” said Wilbur Larch, who for another minute or more could not have seen a blood clot in the brain stem if there had been one to see. He heard Homer say “Right” before he heard the door close.

In a while, he could make out the brain stem clearly; there was no clot.

“Arrhythmia,” Wilbur Larch repeated to himself. Then he added, “Right,” as if he were now speaking for Homer Wells. Dr. Larch put his instruments aside; he gripped the operating table for a long time.

Outside, Homer Wells stuck his bag in the Cadillac’s trunk, smiled at Candy in the back seat, helped Wally raise the convertible’s top; it would be dark soon, and especially cold for Candy in the back seat if they left the top down.